The Great Escape

Prologue- Burned

A/N: It's 9th of December, and 6:30 P.M. here currently. This is a small, introductory chapter of TGE. I will be taking down all the other chapters tomorrow and updating on friday every week. Thanks for reading and your support!

It burned.

Burned down to nothing but ashes.

Ashes of her childhood.

Ashes of her happiness.

Ashes of her grandmother.

Ada cried in silence; salty tears stinging the burn on her face. She laid on the ground motionless, waiting for death to come, hoping it takes her away and spares her brother. Among all the houses burning around her, her remaining one good eye stuck to a particular one.

Her house.

A quaint hut in the middle of the village. Fenced with straws and sticks, there sat a little garden with poppies and jasmines growing in it, going up in flames. Her grandmother used to make tea by boiling the jasmine petals she would pluck from there.

Grandmother.

She was inside.

Ada wanted to get up, to scream, to call out for her, to call out for help but not a muscle moved an inch, not a whimper left her throat. Helplessly, she coughed. The smoke had entered her lungs and was scorching her insides.

Death knell ringed in her buzzing ears. She managed to move her head to the side, looking at the vast expanse of forest veiled by the clouds of smoke.

Timmy.

Worry plagued her mind.

Will he be able to survive?

Will he able to outrun the murderous vampires?

Will he live?

He can not even wash his drawers!

Ada almost laughed. Almost. It came out more as a wheeze and a fit of cough followed. Here she was, breathing her last breath and all she could care about was Timmy's unwashed drawers. With much effort, she lolled her head back to look at her hut.

Another urge to scream, to shout, to curse, to cry rippled through her like an ocean current. She had never seen one. She hoped to see one someday.

That someday would never come.

Grandmother had seen it, though. The ocean currents.

"The waves are tall, Addy. So tall, they hide the sun. Can you imagine it? Hiding the sun," she would say animatedly.

"And the soil is different there. It is coarse. It can not hold water. They called it sand. It is golden brown and looks so beautiful when the sun shines on it."

"We will go there, three of us, someday."

She pleaded her Goddess, pleaded the deities, irrespective of whether she had worshipped them or not. Guilt and shame rippled her heart for bothering the latter ones, but she was desperate. For what, she was not sure.

Mercy?

Life?

A second chance?

She did not knew. It did not matter. At this point, she thought, little did.

"Nana," she whimpered at last, then passed out.

Next chapter: 10th of December, 6:30 P.M. IST.